Wal-Mart National Ad Focuses on Reducing Packaging Waste

Wal-Mart's current national advertising circular distributed in Sunday newspapers across the country this week features a 3/4 page focus on green products with a strong message on reducing packaging.

The circular has a large photo of Tide's new Pure Essentials concentrated laundry detergent as well as door mats made from recycled Wal-Mart tires and a package of GE CFL bulbs.

The top of the page reads " Now you can save the planet while you save money."  The new ad is a first for Wal-Mart and is very similar to an ad Target ran in May in their national circular.

Linking saving money with saving the planet is a key component to Wal-Mart's green marketing strategy and a major hurdle for the greener products market in general whose costs are generally higher then their conventional counterparts, preventing many consumers from buying them.

The ad's main focus is laundry detergent and draws attention to a growing trend in the industry of offering concentrated laundry detergent in smaller packaging.  The ad says, "If every Wal-Mart customer bought just one compact laundry detergent, we'd reduce packaging waste by over 50 million pounds."

Another interesting feature in the ad are the new Wal-Mart Ecomat doormats.  There isn't much information available on the doormats other than they are a "one time offer" and are made from 100% recycled Wal-Mart car tires.  According to Wal-Mart if every customer bought one Ecomat it would keep 60 million passenger tires from becoming waste.

This Wal-Mart ad is of great interest.  The mere fact it mentions "packaging waste" in a national mainstream ad is amazing.  Even a year ago such a mention would have been unheard of for a company like Wal-Mart to acknowledge let alone mention such an issue in a national advertising circular.

Comments

[Alotta Errata]

I saw this ad as well, and I only wished that the advertised laundry soap was a more environmentally friendly one, but I suppose I should take what I can get.

[Joanna Dyckhoff]

Did you also see the organic cotton baby clothing advertised this past weekend? If not check out my blog post as I am the sustainable designer that worked on this program with Wal-mart. I must say that the collection is too cute and too affordable to pass up. Check it out and let me know what you think. Thanks!

http://lotushaus.typepad.com/lotushaus/2007/08/organic-baby-fa.html

[Lotus]

I thought the Ecomat Doormats sound very interesting as well. They don't appear to be available at their website, however. Perhaps, in-store only.